Paystack, Flutterwave and Sycamore have acquired microfinance licences in 2026, and MTN is moving its fintech businesses under group ownership. The legal route is usually acquisition, not application.
In the first half of 2026, three of Nigeria’s better-known fintech groups moved into deposit-taking. Paystack acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank in January and relaunched it as Paystack MFB. Flutterwave secured a national microfinance bank licence through its acquisition of Mono, completed in January and announced in April. Sycamore acquired a microfinance licence in May, according to TechCabal.
Why deposits
A payments business earns fees on money that passes through it. A bank can hold that money and lend it. Flutterwave’s chief executive, Olugbenga Agboola, put the case directly when announcing the licence: with the new structure, he said, money now stays in our platform. Paystack says its bank will offer deposits, business lending and banking-as-a-service, and will operate separately from its payments business.
The legal route
Each of these moves involved acquiring an existing licensed entity. That route requires Central Bank of Nigeria approval for the change of control and brings in due diligence on the target’s regulatory history, capital position and liabilities. Once inside the group, the bank must be run under prudential rules that do not apply to payments entities, which shapes governance, intra-group transactions and the sharing of customer data.
MTN’s version
MTN Nigeria is taking a different path. In August it agreed to sell 60% of MoMo Payment Service Bank and Y’ello Digital Financial Services to MTN Group’s fintech arm for ₦95.5bn, keeping 40%, according to Business Post. The transaction awaits CBN approval, and a second phase would place both entities under a single fintech holding company. The effect is to move loss-making fintech operations out of the listed operator’s full consolidation while keeping them in the group.
What to watch
The CBN’s new payments circular adds a constraint: from 31 December 2026, groups with more than 25% of card issuing may hold no more than 15% of merchant acquiring, and the reverse. As payments groups acquire banks, market share calculations will increasingly be made at group level. Transaction lawyers advising on the next wave of fintech acquisitions will need to test those limits alongside the usual change-of-control approvals.
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